An independent, non-profit source of information about new federal student loan payment and forgiveness programs.

Help is here!

Income-driven repayment plans – like Income-Based
Repayment, Pay As You Earn, and Revised Pay As You Earn – cap your federal
student loan payments at a percentage of your income. For many borrowers, these
plans can help make monthly payments more manageable. If your income is very
low, payments can be as little as $0. Income-driven repayment also ensures that
there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: if you haven’t fully paid off your
loans after 20 or 25 years of payments (depending on the plan), the remaining
debt is forgiven. If you work in government or at a nonprofit organization, you
might qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) after 10 years of
payments.

Great News! The IRS Data Retrieval Tool is Back Up for Student Loan Borrowers

For the first time since it was taken down due to security concerns in March, millions of student loan borrowers can once again use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) to electronically transfer their tax information into the online application for income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Using the DRT, borrowers will be able to apply for IDR and update their income online at StudentLoans.gov, without needing to separately provide their tax returns.

We thank the Department of Education and IRS for working together to restore secure access to this critical tool, and for doing so without creating burdensome new requirements that would make it difficult for low-income students to use the DRT. We look forward to a full restoration of the DRT by October 1st, when it will become available for students completing the FAFSA to qualify for financial aid in the 2018-19 year.

For more information about the DRT outage, see our previous blog posts:

As of December 17, 2015, all
borrowers with federal Direct student loans have access to a new repayment plan
with monthly payments capped at 10% of your discretionary income. You can
enroll regardless of when you borrowed. If you’re having trouble affording your
monthly payments – or just want the assurance of payments based on your income –
check out the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) plan and see if it’s right for
you.

See below for a summary of REPAYE and the other income-driven repayment
plans.

Income-driven repayment plans can help keep monthly payments affordable based on your income and family size. Visit the Department of Education's Repayment Estimator to find out what your payments might be.